Chapter V (4)

[287] The fact is, it has become a party question. Hence strangers who, like Dr W. Lander Lindsay (p. 7, “On the Eruption, in May 1860, of the Kötlu-gjá Volcano, Iceland”), are otherwise employed than in making general inquiries, ignore the basis. When this great _opus_ was printed (1844), few countries in Europe had charts on such a scale, so accurately detailed, and so well engraved. Even at present it wants only the names of places being made more legible; it is still the standard work, for which seamen and landsmen have reason to be grateful, and it forms a solid foundation for future addition to all time. Mr Thorne (Ramsdale, Thorne, & Co.) kindly lent his copy to the author, who ungratefully kept it nearly three years.

[288] Every serious Icelandic traveller of the nineteenth century has alluded more or less to the career of the Rev. Jón Thorláksson, parish priest of Backa, who lived as best becomes a poet, in poverty, and who died in poverty, æt. seventy-five, in 1819. He thus laments his hard fate:

“Yes; Penury hath been my bride
Since e’er I saw the world of men;
And clasped me to her rugged breast
These seventy winters all but twain:
And if we separate here below,
He only knows who made it so.”

His “living,” besides glebe and parish gifts, was £6 per annum, of which half was paid to an assistant (Henderson and Barrow); and he did not live to receive the £20 collected for him in England. He translated Pope’s Essay on Man, Klopstock’s Messiah, and Paradise Lost. The three first books of the latter were printed by the Islenzka Lærdómslista-fèlag (Icel. Lit. Society) before it was dissolved in 1796. The original MS. is deposited in the rooms of the Literary Fund, London.

[289] Forn-yrði, an old word, an archaism; hence Eddaic verse. We may illustrate its alliteration by Peirce Plowman:

“I _looked_ on my left half
As the _Lady_ me taught,
And was _ware_ of a _woman_
_Worthlyith_ clothed.”

Finn Magnússon and Rask thus converted Virgil into narrative verse:

“Arma virumque
Cano, Trojæ
Qui primus ab oris
Italiam,
Fato profugus,
Lavinaque venit
Littora,” etc.

[290] As will appear in the Journal, all the principal streams have ferries or some _succedanea_, and no Iceland guide is in the habit of exposing himself recklessly.

[291] Hunter & M’Donald of Leith sell sou’-westers for 2s.; outer and inner hose, at 3s. 6d. and 2s. 6d.; sailors’ trousers, for 10s.; stout oil coats, at 18s. 6d.; and fishermen’s mitts, at 1s. 3d. Foreman, also of Leith, supplies excellent boots for £2, 10s.

[292] A very young traveller, Mr John Milne, F.G.S., has thus taken the author to task: “Fancy yourself with forty horses, riding over snow bridges by the dozen.” Is it then necessary to explain that the ponies are intended for the Ódáða Hraun, a tract about the size of Devonshire? When Mr Watts started on his second expedition, he declared it was “essential that the party should not be less than six,” and he preferred eight, calculating that the expenses would not exceed £50 per man.

[293] “Ropeing” is not a new thing, as many Alpine travellers seem to think. Pállson, when ascending Öræfa Jökull (1794), used “a rope about ten fathoms in length,” and “left a distance of two fathoms” between himself and his two companions. The latter is the modern average, the extremes being nine and fifteen. The author never heard of Icelanders objecting to this precaution, but “G. H. C.,” who in August 1, 1874, inspected the Kötlu-gjá (_Field_, October 10, 1874), says that his two guides “apparently regarded such proceeding in the light of a capital joke, and, connecting the idea with that of horses (_í taumi_) at a sale, declared ‘they had never heard of a horse-fair on a Yokull.’”

[294] Every kind of snow requires its own shoe. Thus the Norwegian “skies” are very different from the Iceland skí, which resembles the Finn “öndrar,” or “andrar.” These articles are six, seven, and even twelve feet long, by five inches wide, in fact like large cask-staves. The front ends are a little bent up, and the sides are garnished with iron (saddlers’) D’s, through which leather thongs, or bands of willow-withes, are passed to secure the feet. Sometimes for facility of turning, one is made longer than the other, and the Lapps sole the right foot with hairy skin, so as to hold the snow in the back stroke. The alpenstock in Iceland is a bone handled staff, with a stout spike: the author never saw the stick shod with a wheel three inches broad, and safe against sinking, which is used on the Continent.

[295] One of the thermometers was broken on the way to Edinburgh, and, curious to say, it could not be repaired in the capital of Scotland. Professor C. Vogt prefers to the Alpine Sympiesometer, the _Barometre Compensée Metallique_ of M. Richard, Rue Fontaine du Roi, Paris: he used it in Iceland, and found it answer admirably.

[296] The _Saturday Review_ (December 14, 1872) informs its readers that the Danish mail packet runs from Leith--which it does not.

[297] From most parts of the world, too, even from Hungary and Fiume, the casks are sent back to the United States, not broken up, but in bulk, because the heavy freight pays well where labour cannot be bought.

[298] I need hardly remark that this was written before the glorious days of February 1874, when the English nation, centuries ahead of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, by one of the noblest constitutional revolutions known to its history, buried that _felo-de-se_, the Radical Cabinet, and pulled down its programme Disestablishment, Retrenchment, and Non-intervention, the latest modification of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and--Death.

[299] We have seen that in Iceland the Lögberg, or Hill of Laws, was confined to the Althing.

[300] After many years of the “_quousque tandem?_” state of mind, my astonishment at the amount of legal murder authorised and sanctioned by authority in England, and my wonder that abuses so hideous did not become a public scandal, have been explained away by the sacrifices which the patriotic Mr Plimsoll found necessary before he could obtain a hearing. The manner in which his small inaccuracies of detail have been made to obscure the whole “palpitant question,” the counter-charges of sensationalism and ultra-philanthropy which have been brought to refute the main charge, and the notable worship of Mammon and vested abuses, are hardly encouraging to the optimist’s view of “progress.” But the day is now done, let us hope, when crews of “murdered men” can be sent to sea in floating coffins insured at thrice their value. The simplest preventive would be an order that every consul should report all flagrant cases, with the express understanding, however, that he should not be punished nor be made to suffer for doing his “unpleasant duty.”

[301] Found in St. Helier, and written “Helyer” in the Scoto-Scandinavian islands. Evidently the Icelandic Hellir (_plur._ Hellar), a cave, common in local words, _e.g._, Hellis-menn, the cave-men; it is akin to Hallr, a slope, a boulder, much used for proper names of men and women, as Hall-dór (Hall thor) and Hall-dóra (Cleasby).

[302] John Brand (A Brief Description of Orkney, etc., Edinburgh, 1701, Pinkerton, iii. 731) writes Dungisbie Head, and Duncan’s Bay. The Scandinavian form of Duncansbay Head is Dungalsnýpa.

[303] Pettlands Fjörð in Icelandic from Pight-land or Pict-land.

[304] For other interesting details see the Gróttasöngr, or Lay of Grótti.

[305] The old Cape Orcas, derived, as has been said, from Latin Orca, Gaelic Orcc or Orc, and Icelandic Orkn--“_Delphinus orca_,” a dog-seal--the addition of-_ey_, an isle, makes Orkney. This point is the Ptolemeian Tarbetum or “Taruedum, quod et Orcas promontorium, finis Scotiæ dicitur,” and unduly placed in N. lat. 60° 15´, and long. 31° 20´ (lib. i., cap. 3). The word derives from the Gaelic Tarbet, a drag, a portage, a haul-over, common names in Scoto-Scandinavia, and equivalent to the Icelandic Eið (aith). It lies only six miles from the nearest of the archipelago, which Pomponius Mela called Orcades, evidently a Roman corruption of the indigenous “Orkneyjar,” the Irish Innsi Orcc, and the Inis Torc of Ossian. Fordun’s “Scotichronicon” (ii. 2) calls the Orkneys “Insulæ Pomoniæ;” and Buchanan says, “Orcadum maxima multis veterum Pomona vocatur.” As _poma_ are not abundant there, the name has caused considerable argumentation. In the “Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord” (1845-49), and in the “Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland” (Edinburgh, Neill, 1852), Professor A. Munch, of Christiania, contributes an able paper, “Why is the Mainland of Orkney called Pomona?” Before his time Dr (D.D.) George Barry, in an excellent book, “History of the Orkney Islands” (London, Longmans, 1805) had derived Pomona from “pou,” small (query, “Bú,” a settlement, or “bol,” corrupted to “bull,” a house?), and Mon, Patria; also from the Norsk terms signifying “Great-land.” Professor Munch quotes Torfæus (Orcad., p. 5), “Pomona ... a Julio polyhistore Diutina appellatur.” Solinus Polyhistor, facetiously known as Plinii Simius, says of Thule (chap. xxv.), “Ab Orcadibus Thyle usque quinque dierum et noctium navigatio. Sed Thule larga et diutina pomona copiosa est” (Thule is a fertile country, and plentifully productive of long-lasting corn). He would read the evidently mutilated text, “Sed Thule larga et Diutina pomona copiosa est,” or “Sed Thule larga et diutina, Pomona copiosa est,” and he finds that “Diutina _ergò_ Pomona--ab esse ad posse valet consequentia.” But it is over ingenious to account by the error of a text for a popular term four hundred years old, _e.g._,

“Our rare Pomonia, which the natives style
The Mainland.”

[306] To quote the Dean’s English, “it is part of a (Radical?) movement to help forward the obliteration of all trace of the derivation and history of words:” as such it may be highly recommended to the “Japs.” The Icelandic or pure Scandinavian form, simple and compound, is _ey_ (gen. and plur. _eyjar_); each vowel being pronounced distinct, and not confounded, as some foreigners do, with the German _ö_ or the French _eu_. _Ey_ is the Keltic “hy,” as found in the classical Hy Brazile, the mysterious island west of Galway, and so called during centuries before the real Brazil was discovered. Again the form appears in “Ireland’s Eye,” which Cockneys pronounce Ireland’s H’eye; the pure Irish form is _I_ (O’Brien’s Irish-English Dictionary, sub voce), or _aoi_, an island or region, which that learned writer derives (?) from the Hebrew “ai,” insula, regio, provincia. “The Norwegian _öy_, the Danish _öe_, the Swedish _ö_, the Anglo-Saxon _êg_ (-land), and the German _aue_, are found in ey-ot and Leas-ow, Chels-ea and Batters-ea; and whilst the Orkneys corrupt it wofully, we retain it pure in Cherts-ey, Aldern-ey, and Orkn-ey” (Cleasby). Munch (Ant. du Nord) has corrected the error of Webster, who derives “island” from _ea_ or _ey_, water (!), and _land_. It is simply _ey-land_, “terra insularis.”

[307] Properly Sand-eið, or Sand-aith, a sand-isthmus connecting two headlands.

[308] “Links,” from Lykkur, locked or closed fields.

[309] “Bismari” in Icelandic is a steelyard, and “bismara-pund” a kind of lb. The Norwegian Bismerpund is = 12 Skaalpunds (100:110 Eng. avoird.), and the Lispund is = 16 Skaalpunds. The Icelandic word is Lífspund, from Lifl, and = 18 lbs. Scots (Cleasby).

[310] Varangian, Icel. Væringi, from Várar, a pledge (al. Wehr, Vær, ware or active defence): the Væringjar of the Sagas, the Russian Varæger, the Βαράγγοι of Byzantine historians, and our Warings, popularly known through Gibbon and “Count Robert of Paris,” formed the Scandinavian bodyguard of the Eastern empire. These battle-axe men were at first Northmen from Kiew in A.D. 902, under the Emperor Alexis, and successively Danes, Norwegians, and Icelanders (Cleasby and Mallet: Mr Blackwall, note ‡, p. 193, attempts and fails to correct Gibbon). What possessed Mr A. Mounsey (Journal through the Caucasus and Persia) to derive “Feringi” (Frank) from Varangian?

[311] Popularly but erroneously derived from Kolbeinsey or Kaupmannsey, “Chapman’s Isle.”

[312] Mr Blackwall (p. 257) more modestly says the “first European.”

[313] “Peerie-folk” means the fairies, both words evidently congeners of the Persian Pari or Peri. Grimm, an excellent authority, derives the French Fée, the Provençal Fada, the Spanish Hada, and the Italian Fata, from the Latin Fatum--remarking that Fata and Fée have the same analogy as _nata_ and _née_, _amata_ and _aimée_. In connection with “Simmer” or “Sea,” “Peerie,” meaning little, is by some deduced from the French “petit;” in the Shetlands it is further emphasised to Peerie-weerie-winkie (of a foal, etc.).

[314] The ordinary runes, I need hardly say, have been shown by Rafn to be derived from archaic Greek; and probably from coins which found their way north during the first centuries of our era.

[315] Gen. Lim-rúnar (lim or limr being the limb of a tree opposed to the bole), which Cleasby explains as “a kind of magical runes.”

[316] “Hubby” is a loose robe, erroneously derived, like the Scotch Joop, the German Giup, the Italian Giubba and Giubbone, the French Jupe and Jupon, and the Slav Japungia, from the Norsk Hwipu. All these are simply corruptions of the Arabic “Jubbeh.”

[317] These Northmen left their handiwork even on the “Stones of Venice.” Readers may not be unwilling to see the legend upon the maneless and melancholy lion, the statue of Pentelic marble, ten feet high, once at the harbour mouth of the Piræus (Porto Leone), where the pedestal still stands, now fronting the arsenal, Venice, where, after the retreat from Greece, the Doge Morosini carried it in 1687. The hardly legible inscription on the right side of the animal is supposed to be, “Asmundr graved these runes united with Asgeir, Thorlief, Thórd, and Ívar, at the request of Haraldr Háfi (the Tall); although the Greeks, taking thought, forbade it.” It is supposed that this Harold was the same who had the promise of seven feet in English ground. The left flank and shoulder are less uncertain, and the legend reads as follows: “Hakun, united with Ulfr (Wolf) and Asmundr and Aurn (Örn), conquered this port. These men and Haraldr Háfi, on account of the uprising of the Greek people, imposed considerable fines. Dálkr remained (prisoner?) in remote regions. Egill fared with Ragnar to Rumania ... and Armenia.”

The inscriptions were first published in 1800 by Åkerblad, a Swedish savant; they have been frequently revised, and the last study is the “Inscription Runique du Pirée, interpretée par C. C. Rafn; et publiée par la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord,” Copenhagen, 1856.

[318] The old Norsk Megin-land, land of might, or mainland, is evidently, like the Scotch Mickle, connected with the Persian Mih or Mihin, great, powerful, but not, as Mr Blackwall conceives, with “miracle.” The classical name of the Orkney group, then numbering only seven, is Acmodæ in Pliny, iv. 16, and Hæmodæ in Mela, iii. 6. The Icelandic term is Hjaltland (pronounced _Zhatland_), hence Zetland, Hetland, and Shetland. Thus it still preserves the fame of old Hjalti, the Viking of the ninth century, who also survives in the modern “Sholto.” Munch suggests that Hjaltland, hilt-land, may have been given from a weapon dropped in it; so trivial were the names of olden Scandinavia: he also mentions the legend of Swordland, a great country now submerged, between Norway and Hjaltland, its hilt.

[319] In Scandinavian, Dynröst, “thundering roost,” from “að dynja,” to din; hence the Tyne and Dvina Rivers. The Icelandic Röst, or current, is the French Raz; that of “Petlandsfjörð” is especially celebrated. In the Orkneys “Roust” is a stormy sea caused by the meeting of tides; “Skail” (Icel. Skellr) is the dashing of surf upon the shore; “Skelder,” the washing of waves, is a common name for farm-houses near the beach; and “Swelchie,” which explains its own meaning, is the Icelandic Svelgr.

[320] Fit Fiall, _i.e._, “planities pinguis,” or, better still, Fitfulglahöfði, sea-fowl cape.

[321] An abstract printed in “Illustrations of Northern Antiquities,” one vol. 4to, Edinburgh, 1814; reprinted verbatim in “Northern Antiquities,” edited by Mr J. A. Blackwall, London, Bohn, 1859. In it we may note the origin of Norna the sibyl’s “improvisatory and enigmatical poetry.”

[322] Originally Brúsey, from Brúsi, a proper name.

[323] Skála-vegr, the way of the court-house.

[324] Also written Brough, meaning a round tower. The word is usually derived from the Gothic “berga,” to defend, but it has a far nobler origin. It is the Chaldee “burgadh,” the Arabic “burj,” the Armenian “pourc,” the Greek “πύργος,” and the Latin “burgus;” the Gothic “baurg,” the Mæso-Gothic “bairg,” and “borg,” a mountain; the Scandinavian “borg,” a fortress; the Armoric, Irish, and Welsh “burg,” also found in Teutonic and Saxon; the Anglo-Saxon “beorh” and “beorg,” a rampart, and “burh” or “bureg,” a castle; the Belgian “burg,” the Gaelic “burg,” the French “bourg,” the Italian “borgo,” the North British “burgh” and “burg,” as Edinburgh and Corrensburg; the Scoto-Scandinavian “brogh” or “broch,” with the guttural uncompounded, and even “borve,” as in Sianborve, and “burr,” as in Burraness; and, finally, the English “burg” and “burgh,” “borough” and “burrow.” Such are a few of its titles to antiquity and extent of domain.

[325] I am well aware of the difficulties, and especially of the expense, objected to condensing peat. But peat _au naturel_ can be burnt as the _mottes_ in France and Holland have been used for generations. And I am also aware of the immense interests wielded by the Coal League--surely these must sooner or later succumb to the public good. Lands without coal leagues find no difficulty in the operation. The two companies lately established at Oldenburg use a large flat-bottomed steamer, which opens a canal 20 feet broad and 6 deep at the rate of 10 to 12 feet per hour: the soil is heaped up on the banks, and is cut into brick-shape, after which mere drying makes it fit for fuel.

[326] After Australian diggers had asserted for years that gold would be found in Bute, a specimen was lately (1874) extracted from a vein of quartz which runs out into the sea below the Skeoch plantation.

[327] Jerome Cardan, travelling in Scotland (1552), remarked the popular fondness for the _Platanus_, and explains it thus: “I think they take a special delight in that tree, because its foliage is so like vine leaves.... ‘Tis like lovers, who delight in portraits when they can’t have the original.” Colonel Yule (Geograph. Mag., Sept. 1, 1874) asks whether these trees were the real plane (_P. Orientalis_) or the maple (_Acer pseudo-platanus_), commonly but erroneously so called in Scotland, and still more erroneously in England, “Sycamore.” Hence also, he observes, by propagation of error Eastern travellers translate the Persian “Chínár” (_Platanus_) by Sycamore.

[328] Especially “Shetland,” etc., by Robert Cowie, M. A., M. D. Edinburgh: Menzies, 1871. Will the author allow me to suggest that in his next edition of this valuable work--an exceptional guide-book, amusing as well as instructing--the medical part from page 56 to page 88, and especially Chapter XIV., should be placed in an appendix? At present it reminds me of a volume which I read with the liveliest interest, “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” regretting only that the order of the tales had not been systematically reversed. Dr Cowie has been kind enough, at my request, to draw up an account of the pre-historic collection at Lerwick, which will be found in the note at the end of this chapter.

Since these lines were written, the papers have informed me that Dr Cowie, after printing a second edition of his admirable guide-book, has passed from this world when in the prime of manhood.

[329] The number of these places of refuge shows the Shetlands in proto-historical times to have been densely peopled. I have made the same remark about the Istrian Castellieri.

[330] Etymological Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialects, by Thomas Edmonston. Edinburgh, 1866.

[331] Hence the name of Malestrom or Moskoestrom.

[332] “Lappmark’s land-plague,” says Mr Shairp, author of “Up in North” (London: Chapman & Hall, 1872), is of three kinds:

1. Mygg, or long nose (_Culex pipiens_), the wretch of stinging bite and blasphemous song.

2. Knott (_C. reptans_), a villain that keeps close to the ground, and avoids horses.

3. Hya or Gnadd (_C. pulicaris_), the smallest of the family, but when it “sticks,” as the Swedes say, violent itching is the result.

[333] The fowl rope contained sixteen ox hides, and the seven pieces each measured eighty fathoms. Early in the present century it cost only $10.

[334] One of those in the Lerwick Museum was taken out of the peat-moss six feet beneath the surface.

[335] On some Remarkable Discoveries of Rude Stone Implements in Shetland, by Arthur Mitchell, F.S.A., from Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. vii, 1866-67.

[336] Dr Mitchell, paper supra cit.

[337] At Ephesus blue formed the background of enrichments and sculpture in relief, whilst brilliant reds and yellows were applied to the parts requiring greater prominence. The idea that red, green, and blue, are primitives, with yellow, sea-green, and pink for complements, is very modern and rather startling.

[338] He attributes (p. 49) the fire to crushed driftwood, but Adam of Bremen declares the ice to be so dry that it can burn.

[339] The Icelandic “fugl” is especially applied to the gull. “Fowl-isle” amongst the Scandinavians meant an isolated rock lying far out to sea, and supposed to represent a bird swimming.

[340] Raven--old German, Hraban; modern, Rabe; Icel. Hrafn (_pron._ Hrabn); Anglo-Saxon, Hræfn; Dan. Ravn; and Slav. Vran--is derived (says Max Müller, “Science of Languages,” Longmans, 1862) from the Sanskrit Rn or Krn, “to cry,” whence “raucus,” and other kindred words. Like the pigeon, the genus Corvus (Corax and Cornix) crops up in all mythology, even where least expected; witness the Hierocorax of Mithras and the marvellous changes by which Apollo and Athene became crows.

[341] The very word is Norsk, “leiðar-(Anglo-Saxon, lâd) steinn,” not “lapis viæ,” but leading stone (að leiða), or lode-stone; like lode-star and lodesman, “a pilot.” It is also called Sólar-steinn, or “sun-stone.”

[342] Cleasby derives it from Kúði or Kóð, the fry of trout and salmon.

[343] Several Icelanders (see Dr W. Lauder Lindsay) have visited the rift which engulphed Katla, the murderess and suicide; a name well known by the translation of Powell and Magnússon. “G. H. C.,” before quoted, who explored it in August 1874, after being misled by the map, found on the southern face “a deep circular indentation where black volcanic sand could be seen uncovered by snow and ice.” We can now explain by the usual method the glacier which, according to Professor Steenstrŭp, was torn from its moorings in 1721 by water within or below: evidently the heated ground melted the whole of the upper _calotte_ and caused the catastrophe. Other traces were concealed by the snow-fall which, consolidating into glacier-ice, accumulates annually twenty feet, and fourteen years have elapsed since the last eruption. The guides were surprised that “their natural foe should present phenomena of a character no more startling and tremendous. What had they expected to find? Perhaps a vast yawning gulf, over whose edge might be watched the spirit of Katla, whirling like a second Francesca di Rimini in the sulphurous depths below.” Yet Henderson could descry from Skaptafell “the aqua-igneous volcano _Kötlu-giá_, whose tremendously yawning crater was distinctly visible” (i. 264).

[344] In Iceland the reflection of field-ice is brightest, but yellow; new ice is grey, and drift-ice is purest white. The use of “blink” is not happy: Ross employs it in “ice-blink” to denote a cliff or barrier; others talk of land-blink, _i.e._, the reflection of the sky upon the earth.

[345] The English “tern” is from the Icel. Therna (_Sterna hirundo_).

[346] Hence “Lundy” in the Bristol Channel.

[347] Baring-Gould (pp. 418, 419) gives four kinds of skuas--_Catarrhactes_ (great skua), _Pomatorhinus_, _Parasiticus_ (Arctic skua), and _Buffoni_. He makes “Kjór” the Icel. name for No. 3: I heard it so applied, but the Dictionary gives “a sea-bird of the tern kind; Hill’s Sterna.” We find the family mentioned by Pigafetta, the circumnavigator (A.D. 1519-22), under the libellous name “Cagassela” or “Caca uccello,” and he himself oftentimes witnessed the practice which survives in the term Stercorarius. It is an Antarctic as well as an Arctic “pirate of the seas.”

[348] A term of daily use, derived from “að hrynja,” to flow, to stream down; its pronunciation (_Hroyn_) induces the facetious traveller to call it the “road to ruin,” and Henderson wrote as he spoke, Hroyn. “Gullbringu” is usually translated gold-bringing; but Cleasby, sub voc. “bringa,” derives the word differently, and makes “Gull-bringur” signify the Golden Slopes. In Sect. VII. of Introduction a third signification has been given.

[349] Hence the country word “Kaarl Cat,” for tom cat, still preserved in heraldry. The Icel. Karl is pronounced _Katl_ or _Kadl_.

[350] Farther south the Fulmar is called the Mollie-moke; hence the “mollie,” or mild orgie on broad northern whalers.

[351] The following is the whole text of the letter upon the “Expected Eruption of Mount Hecla” (which did not take place):

“MANSE OF ARBUTHNOTT, _July 2, 1872._

“SIR,--Will you permit me to add the following to your paragraph with the above heading in the _Scotsman_ of to-day? While doubling Cape Reikianess, the south-west promontory of Iceland, on the morning of Saturday, June 8, we saw a remarkable Geyser a few miles inland, shooting up water at regular intervals of about five minutes to a height of at least 100 feet. All on board who had ever heard of the Great Geyser, so graphically described by Madame Ida Pfeiffer and others, but which is sometimes so unpolite as to keep sightseers waiting two days before it favours them with an exhibition, were amazed at a spectacle so remarkable, and yet so unremarked by any who before us had visited Iceland.

“After attending service at the church of Reikiavik on Sunday, I did myself the honour to call upon the Bishop of Iceland, an excellent, courteous old gentleman, who, if he does not dwell, like the Psalmist, in a ‘house of cedar,’ dwells, like his flock, in a house of Norwegian fir. He could not speak English, but he spoke French well. To him I mentioned the phenomenon we had seen, believing that he was as likely as any one to know whether or not it was new. He told me that he knew the district well, but that there was no Geyser there at his last visit; that what we had seen, therefore, was quite new. In answer to my inquiry whether there had been any recent volcanic disturbance in the island, he informed me that there had been a violent earthquake in the northern region about the middle of April. This outburst of a new Geyser (which we observed in full play on our homeward voyage on Tuesday, June 11) and the earthquake in the north, seem premonitory of an eruption either of Hecla, or of some other of the other seven mountains which Keith Johnston, in his Physical Atlas, marks as active volcanoes. I hope we shall shortly have a description of any such occurrence, if it do take place, from the graphic pen of Captain Burton, whose society made our outward voyage a rare treat.--I am, etc.

“(Signed) R. M. SPENCE.”

[352] Reyk = reek (Kelt. Ruagh, Reâc, and Ruah, the German Rauch), seems to be a word common to the Aryan and Semitic families. Old philologists derive it from the Hebrew Ruach, Arab. Rúh or Ríh, wind, breath, mind, spirit. Spinoza, the Hebraist, translates, apparently with reason, “Ruach Elohim” (the Spirit of Elohim or Gods, Gen. i. 2) by “a strong wind.”

[353] “Eyjar” is often used of the Western Isles, Orkneys, Shetlands, and Soder or Suder (Suðr-ey, south isle, whence the diocese of Soder and Man). In south Iceland it is also applied to the Vestmannaeyjar.

[354] One of the earliest forms of armour-plating, the old defence still survives in the nettings of our bulwarks.

[355] English tautology. Skagi (in Shetland Scaw or Skaw, _e.g._, the Skaw of Unst) is a low cape opposed to Höfði, a high headland (Cleasby).

[356] Originally Örfiris-eye, which has been explained under Orfir of the Orkneys.

[357] Heimdall was the doorkeeper of the gods, who kills and is killed by Loki.

[358] I dismiss the “Iceland Revolution” in a few lines, for Baring-Gould (Introd. xlii.) has given a very complete account, borrowed from Hooker and Mackenzie.

[359] Reykjavíkr in the nominative sing, is an abstract linguistic fiction, from Vík (feminine), a bay, a wich (_e.g._, Greenwich). Travellers neglect the Icelandic termination, and even English literati omit the-_r_ or-_ur_ as superfluous and strictly correct only in the nominative, _e.g._, Leif for Leifr. From Vík, a bay, comes Víking, a baying-voyage, or seeking the shelter of bays, and Víkingr, a baying-voyager, or a voyager from the fjords. This word, sometimes written Vi-king in English, suggests a wrong etymology. Cleasby warns us that the termination-_wick_ or-_wich_ is Norsk only for maritime places, the inland “wicks” derive from the Latin _vicus_. Local names beginning with _Reyk_ are unknown to Scandinavians, and peculiar to Iceland where the pillars of steam must have struck the colonist’s eye.

[360] Taken at the cathedral. The longitude (G.) given by Norie is W. 21° 51´ 3´´, by Raper 21° 55´ 2´´; Norie gives the lat. 64° 9´ O”, Raper 64° 8´ 4´´. The variation of the compass is roughly 36° off Berufjörð; 35° 15´ off the eastern Jökull; and 45° off Reykjavik: it was in 1814 (Henderson, i. 250) “two points towards the west;” in 1840 (French charts) it was W. 43° 21´. M. Lottier (1838) made it 43° 14´; and in 1871 (Admiralty chart, by Captain Evans) it was 44°, still increasing at the rate of 5´ per annum. Consequently the people have two norths--north by compass and true north, the latter at Reykjavik fronting the mountain-block Akrafjall. The inclination (dip) of the magnetic needle (French chart of 1840) is 76° 45´. The vulgar _Etablissement du port_ (Hafenzeit, high water at full and change), French chart, is at 5h. Om.; and the maximum height of the tides 5m. 35 cent. The Admiralty tables give spring-tides a rise of 17½ feet and the neaps 13¼.

[361] The Dictionary translates it “home of the Thronds” (Thrændir).

[362] From “And,” opposite, and “Vegr,” an “opposite seat,” a “high seat.” In the old timbered hall the benches (bekkr) were ranged along the walls with the two seats of honour in the middle facing one another. The northern, fronting the sun, was called Öndvegi æðra, first or higher high-seat, reserved for the master, and the other was Úæðra, the lower or second, kept for the chief guest. In England the master and the mistress sitting opposite each other at table, may be a remnant of the old Scandinavian custom. The sides of the high seat were ornamented with uprights (öndugis súlur) carved with figures, such as a head of Thor: these posts were regarded with religious honour and were thrown into the sea as guides. When a man of rank died, the son, after all rites performed, solemnly sat in his father’s seat, as a sign of succession, but this was not done if the paternal murder remained unavenged (Cleasby).

[363] There is a plan of Reykjavik, but the size of the scale keeps it in MS. Baring-Gould and others give ground sketches, which are now obsolete.

[364] In Icel. Brú is a bridge in our sense of the word; Bryggja is a landing-place as well as a bridge.

[365] This hollow sound may be remarked even in the new town of Trieste, where a passing omnibus shakes the substantially-built stone houses. Such soil must be always the most dangerous in case of earthquakes, which are comparatively harmless on the adjacent hill-slopes.

[366] The word Völlr (plur. Vellir, and gen. pl. Valla) means a field, and is akin to the German Wald. It often occurs in the plural, _e.g._, Reyni-vellir (Rowan plains); and “Thing-valla,” the foreign way of writing, is properly Thingvellir.

[367] Tómr, empty, is the Scotch “toom.”

[368] I particularly remarked the beautiful shell, striped white and brick-red, the Hörpu-diskr, _Pecten Islandicus_, or Iceland clam. The krákuskel, or _Mytilus edulis_, is eaten by foxes.

[369] Native authorities differ as to the depth where frost extends. I heard a maximum of eight feet, even in the lowlands.

[370] The word Hjallr, the Færoese Kiadlur, is akin to Hjalli and Hilla (English hill), a shelf or ledge in the mountain-side, and hence a scaffold; the full term for the fish-shed is Fisk-hjallr (Cleasby).

[371] Henderson confounds the “Klip-fish” (Danish, Klippe, a rock), which is cleaned, salted, and stacked, with the stock-fish or dry-fish, simply split, washed, sunned, and turned by the women. The latter forms the national staff of life, and is not exported. “Fiskr” in Icelandic is especially applied to cod, trout, and salmon.

[372] The Maskat Arabs eat shark-meat, but they never apply the oil to the skin, considering it a caustic; rubbed into ship bottoms, it is supposed to defend the wood from worms.

[373] There was one corpse at the Hospital; the death had been caused by delirium tremens.

[374]

The “boiled shirt” costs 12 skillings = 3d. Flannel ” ” 8 ” = 2d. Socks and collars ” 3 ” = 1½d. Kerchiefs and white ties 2 ” = 1d.

You must be pretty careful, however, unless you wish your linen to go the way of all washing in all lands.

[375] I was once asked at an English country-house to show how coffee is made in Arabia; the housekeeper’s only remark was, “It is easy to make coffee like Captain Burton if one may use so much!” But the Arab system, though simple as it is scientific, cannot be learnt without long practice.

[376] The lich-gate proper in the cemetery is, or rather was, called Sálu-hlið, or souls’ gate.

[377] According to Professor J. M. Thiele (Copenhagen, 1832), he was descended on the spindle side--where, by-the-by, almost any descent can be established--from the royal blood of Scandinavia. The family, once settled at Óslandshlíð in Skagafjörð, sank, and his father Gottskálk emigrated to Copenhagen, where he lived by carving figureheads for shipwrights. His mother was a clergyman’s daughter, and he was born November 19, 1770. Finn Magnússon (Antiquitates Americanæ) has also drawn up his pedigree.

His first order from his northern home was, according to Thiele, a font which Countess Schimmelmann and her brother Baron Schubarth wished to present to the church of Brahe-Trolleberg in “Funen,” as we write Fyen. It was adorned with four bas-reliefs--the Baptism, the Holy Family, Christ blessing the children, and three angels. After being exhibited and admired at Copenhagen, it was sent to its destination, and a copy, we are told, was offered by the artist to the deserted land of his forefathers, to be _placed in Myklabye church_. A note informs us that this font was bought by a northern merchant, whereupon the artist immediately began another in Carrara marble. It is not said whether the third edition actually reached Myklabye church or is the one bought by Lord Caledon--evidently we have found it in the cathedral.

The “Patriarch of Bas-reliefs,” as the Italians entitled him (ob. 1844), has been called a “handsome young Dane,” when he was peculiarly Icelandic in body and mind. It was his misfortune to belong to the day of manufacturing sculptors, amongst whom he was the first and no more. But what can the artist expect from such inspiration as Jason, Anacreon and Cupid, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, can give? The Icelander was pure and simple, free from the Gallicisms of Canova, an improvement upon Sergell the Swede, but cold, lacking life and interest; in fact, an imitator. I would rather in these days settle as an artist amongst the Kru-boys of the west coast of Africa, and attempt negro subjects, than copy the classics.

Richard Cleasby, who, by the by, killed himself with Cures, or rather Kurs, had a wide experience of men and manners in Europe, and his criticisms are sometimes sharp, but he left Thorvaldsen “with the impression of having been in the company of a great man.” The peculiar Icelandic traits in his character were an ultra-Yankee ‘cuteness in making a bargain, and a love of money, which led him into that ugly business of Madame d’Uhden. Still he amply deserves the statue for which the Municipal Council of Copenhagen has voted $6000, in honour of the Iceland Millenary.

[378] Síra is more commonly, but not so correctly, written Séra, and by foreigners Sjera; and I have heard it pronounced _Shera_. It is a Romance word, originally Senior, hence Seigneur, Signore, Senhor, Señor, Sir, Sir-r (Richardson), Sirrah, and “Sir-ree.” Icelanders still keep up our fashion of Shakespeare’s day, and apply it to clerks with the Christian name only, as Sir Hugh. _Magister_ was the university title of the M.A. in our fifteenth century: _Dominus_ (the Dan of Chaucer and his contemporaries, and the Don of modern Italian priests) was, and still is, the B.A., entered as Sir This or Sir That (the surname) in some of the college registers down to the time of Queen Anne, and, I believe, even in our day. Hence, possibly, the origin of the French Sir Brown and Sir Jones.

[379] This author also tells us that Sweden annually produces 38,000,000 of pots of Korn-schnapps, of which 6,000,000 are used for technological purposes.

[380] In 1872 no less than 1100 cases of illicit distillation were detected in Ireland, against 21 in England, and 8 in Scotland.

[381] The irrepressible statistician of the _Figaro_ assigns annually to England 50,000 deaths by drunkenness, of which 12,000 are women; 40,000 to Germany; 38,000 to the United States; 10,000 to Russia (??); 4000 to Belgium; and 1500 to virtuous France.

[382] Bishop Pètursson has a section (No. 3, p. 448, et seq.), “De regiis Islandiæ Satrapis,” amongst whom was a Count Ehrenreich C. L. Moltke. Chap. II. (p. 474) treats “de Finno Johannæo;” and Chap. III. (p. 479) “de Johanne Finnæo.”

[383] I made the mistake before leaving England of buying the Biblia published in the German character at Copenhagen in 1747, and found the language old-fashioned. The Oxford edition of the Bible Society, which sells for four marks, is certainly an improvement.

[384] Grímr and Grímnir are names of Odin, from his travelling in disguise: grímumaðr is a cowled man, “Mutalassam,” or “face-veiled,” as the Bedawin say.

[385] I see by the papers that Father Stub, the Barnabite, on his return to Berghen in Norway, opened a Catholic church, to the great satisfaction of the people.

[386] This common name of places in Iceland means Holts, hills; it is the plural of Hóll, but most writers put it in the dative plural, Hólum, as it would stand in composition “í Hólum” at Hólar. Possibly the intention is, despite grammar, to apply Hólum to the bishopric and Hólar to the other sites.

[387] The name has been discussed in the Introduction (Section VII.).

[388] Moðir is mother; Ammá (evidently a Sanskritic form), grandmother; and Edda is Proavia, or great-grandmother. Of course the derivation is disputed.

End of Project Gutenberg's Ultima Thule; vol. 1/2, by Richard R. Burton